So I sat there…

…in the restaurant with this feeling that if I didn’t get to talk to this man my life would be forever changed and that if I did talk to this man my life would be forever changed. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him during this talking session but I knew I had to talk to him. Mid-way through our meal Tim approached the table and told me he was leaving. I found out later that this was the one and only time he ditched out of work early…that tells me how freaked out he was also. Anyway, I handed him my phone number (yes, the same one he thought had been disconnected) and told him, “Please call me. I need to talk to you.” He tells me now that the fact I used the word ‘need’ compelled him to call me the next morning. He said his first thought was, “Jill Trotter never needed a thing in her life. She needs me to call her?” I went home that night and told my friend, “I’m going to marry Tim.” She looked at me and said, “I know.”

The next evening Tim came over for dinner and conversation. I was bold. I was uncharacteristically bold and completely unafraid. It went a little something like this:

J: Here is the thing. In the past several months I have had 3 dreams about you. In one we were grocery shopping. In another we were with a baby taking it’s first steps. In the last one we were at a wedding but it wasn’t our own. When I saw you I knew and it was strange but we’re going to get married. (This is when Tim flashed on a conversation he’d had 2 weeks previous with friends about ‘the one that got away’…the one being me.)

T: Really? I’m supposed to move to Monterey in 2 weeks. I’m moving for work but a girl named Natalie is going with me. It’s stupid and I don’t love her and I don’t know why I agreed to let her go but she is and we are moving in together.

J: That is fine. Go do what you have to do. It’s fine. I just know that some day we’ll get married. We can’t stop it. I truly believe it’s what God has for us.

We ate dinner. I didn’t even realize how bold I had been because it was just that real to me. It was undeniable. We watched Dan Jansen finally win a gold medal that night and at one point I leaned back into Tim. He said that was the moment he felt like he came home. That was when he knew too. But he wouldn’t tell me. Instead he would leave that night and break things off with Natalie.

(He says the reason he called me a little $h1t when I walked in the restaurant was because the first thing he thought of when he saw me was, ‘how am I going to tell Natalie she’s not moving to Monterey?’ )

The next day when I came home from work there was a message on my answering machine: “Jill, I’ve been thinking. I broke it off with Natalie. Will you come help me find an apartment in Monterey? I….I….the thing is…..um…..you might…..it’s just that…..well, I’ve always loved you. I’ve always wanted you to love me back.”